Gamecocks find a true star in Cann

“I don’t need no superstar,
’Cause I’ll accept you as you are.”
--------- MARILYN McCOO AND BILLY DAVIS JR.

I think I’ve been around here long enough for you loyal readers (Tom AND Sally) to know I put no trust or weight whatsoever in the recruiting ranking system. I was forever cured of stars determining a football player’s collegiate worthiness during The Unfortunate Courtney Leavitt Episode.

I’ve learned to trust my own eyes when viewing a player and deciding whether or not he’ll be a stud player at the next level. And it’s not just on the field, it’s off the field – how they react to the glorified stalking that is recruiting is a particular factor.

South Carolina picked up a commitment on Wednesday from four-star recruit A.J. Cann. That apparently means he’s pretty good because the top ranking is five stars.

If five stars means he’s got the best possible attitude to play football in college, then yes, he’s a four-star. I’d say he’s worth five, even though I only talked to him for 15 minutes.

That was time enough for me to determine he’ll be a player when he gets to South Carolina.

He didn’t give a lot of the stock answers, despite having to answer the same questions from all of the media sources that were there. He looked me in the eye when he did it. He introduced himself to me when I did the same to him.

He’s one of those kids who knows he’s better than most when he’s on the field, but doesn’t act like he’s better than most when off the field. Even on his day, he stuck to the back of the room after the TV lights were shut off.

“I’m glad it’s all over,” he said softly. “Now I can get back to playing ball.”

Right there. Amazing.

Cann didn’t want to milk the recruiting process. Just get it done so maybe he’d be left alone while trying to play football during his senior year. Four-star?

And more.

It’s worth it to note I’ve never seen Cann play, and one can only tell so much from highlight video. I know he must be a heck of an athlete, though, just looking at his surroundings.

I’ve said it for years – you want the best linebacker, best quarterback, best receiver, you’ll get it from a Class AAAA school. You want the best athlete, go to a Class A school.

Those are the ones where the enrollments and teams are so small that most of the football players have to play both ways. At Bamberg-Ehrhardt, Cann’s school, that’s certainly the case.

The book on Cann raves about his quick feet and athleticism – that comes from playing both sides of the line on every Friday night. He projects as an offensive lineman in college – he’ll have to add some bulk but the way I see it, recruiting quicker linemen is a sign of the times, since everybody’s running the spread anyway.

His coach told me Cann feels like he’s playing for the community – Bamberg is one of those towns tucked between a few large cities that relies on its prep sports to fuel the town’s spirit. The high school is right beside the hospital and the state championship signs ringing the baseball field (Mookie ’86, anyone?) are those that you just know some old feller spent all week working on so he could be part of the program.

It’s the perfect high-school football town. I’ve only been to a game there once, years ago, but I knew if I was to leave in the middle of the second quarter and cruise the streets, the only life I’d see would be a few stray varmints.

Cann is that rare player who plays the game because he loves it. He doesn’t look at football as a profession. He’s not one of those who quickly becomes tired of hearing about how good he is and treats the rest of his football experience like a job – a guy that plays because he’s good enough to earn a living playing, but doesn’t particularly enjoy it.

Cann’s approach to the hoopla counted more on my ranking system than any tackle or block. I want to see kids who passionately love the game suit up for the Gamecocks – there’s several on the team now, but they and any other program can always use more. I don’t need to hear predictions of greatness – I just want to see earnest expressions of pulling on the jersey some day and getting to play on that stretch of grass off Bluff Road.

Those are the true stars. You just hope they don’t burn out before they get to where they’re going.

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To Slip or Not to Slip -- That is the Question

Also see:

Season wrapup

2010 Lookahead

“I’m finding it harder to get by.”
------------------------- SUM 41

I waited a few days to write it, reading most of the posts on our message boards that had their opinions of South Carolina’s baseball season. It seemed it was about half-and-half, arguing The Program Has Slipped/The Program Has Not Slipped.

As I banged out a rather tender reply to those of the former opinion, my fingers seethed with anger. “It’s not that the program has slipped, you idiots,” I wrote, “but that the rest of the country has caught up with the Gamecocks.”

Then I re-read it and thought, “You’re the idiot here. That’s the very definition of a slipping program.”

It’s tough love, looking at a program that has won so much and realizing it’s not as good as it used to be. And it’s not that USC can’t get back to where it was.

But it’s the price one pays for being so incredibly successful for so long. It hasn’t happened much around USC, and outside of track and field, it’s almost never happened for a straight decade.

Folks get too used to winning too fast. Fact.

When the team that’s used to winning doesn’t win as much, it has to be characterized as slipping. It’s a harsh word to use, but whatever variations you can find, i.e. “losing ground,” “falling,” “been surpassed,” are synonyms for the original.

Those first five years, where USC really came together under coach Ray Tanner, were glorious. Trips to the SEC and NCAA tournaments were constant and USC always stuck around for a while (at least, in the latter), finally breaking through in 2002.

That season began a three-year stretch of Omaha appearances. The Gamecocks have been trying to get back since.

Understand, it’s hard – fantastically hard – to go to the CWS every year. There’s a few teams that are usually there (Texas comes to mind) but the rest of the country hopes for a streak like USC had. North Carolina’s on one now.

It’s a lofty expectation and it’s no problem, as long as you keep hitting it. Go a few years without it, and that “slipping” word comes up.

Looking at this year’s team, it met my expectation. I looked at what it had lost and realized it would a Herculean task to get to the CWS considering what it had. I said in the preseason that getting to the regionals would be a fine season.

As the Gamecocks struggled to be consistent until past the season’s midpoint, I think a great number of you agreed with me. We all realized the same conclusion – USC had lost a lot of talent, something that happens to the best programs, and while the replacements were good ballplayers, they could never be good enough to replace the contributions of who had left. It’s unfair to ask the current group to do that, but Tanner had no choice – there are no “down years” where he comes from.

Expectations were lowered, which was good. That made it easier for the team to do better than what was expected.

Until.

USC hit that win streak to close the season and all of a sudden was back in the country’s good graces. Taking 10 of 11 games to once again make it to the SEC tournament and make itself a no-doubt regional team was impressive.

The problem was, it also raised those pesky expectations again. That winning streak fooled all of us. While it was fine baseball, look at who it was against – Vanderbilt, a team that struggled late and made it into the SEC tournament as the eighth and final seed; Tennessee, which finished last in the SEC East; non-conference wins over USC Upstate; and Georgia, which free-fell from a No. 1 ranking midseason to barely making a peep in the postseason.

USC got to the regionals and was sitting pretty with two wins in two games, ready to win one more game and head to Chapel Hill. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that for this team to make the supers when last year’s team didn’t would have been successful, no matter what happened against UNC.

The Gamecocks had their trip for all but three outs.

Three outs.

It’s an awfully thin string to teeter on, high above a pit where falling on one side is success and the other is failure.

But that’s what it is this year.

USC gets those three outs, it heads to the supers and the tag for this season becomes “exceeded expectations.” Maybe it even wins two games and heads to Omaha, and I challenge anyone who would dare suggest a trip to the CWS, even a two-and-barbecue trip, equals failure.

The Gamecocks didn’t get those three outs (at least, not before the best chance to win was long gone). The win streak, the overall season, the contributions of first-year players who weren’t thought to be able to contribute so much were all cast into the pit of disappointment.

That’ll leave a mark. It’s a rotten thing to say, but again, when you win so much and suddenly don’t win as much, what else can you say?

By itself, the last five-year stretch of USC baseball is excellent. The Gamecocks have won 40 or more games every year, gotten to Hoover, gotten to the regionals and gotten to two supers. Most programs would open a vein to have that on their resume.

Compared to the first five years of the decade, it’s good but not great. Those first five had two SEC championships, an SEC tournament championship, five super regional appearances, three trips to Omaha and three 50-win seasons (with another 49-win season).

It is good to know that USC baseball has risen to the point where not making the supers is considered disappointing. That is the sign of a terrific program that commands the nation’s respect – not too many others around here that can say that.

But boy, is it painful to watch and write about when a few consecutive years of not reaching that point come up.

Tanner is much too good of a coach to not be able to turn it back around. He will – I’ve got no doubt. With Chad Holbrook now on board and a solid group of recruits coming in, USC will be back.

It’s only recently that getting back became a goal.

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Avoid tough luck with tough pitching

“Why cure the fever?
What ever happened to sweat?”
--------------------- METALLICA

There needs to be a switch, right now, if not sooner.

Not in terms of coaches and players.

In terms of attitude.

South Carolina’s bullpen will find out in the next week, after season wrapup meetings and the Major League Baseball draft are completed, exactly who will be returning next season. The returnees need to band together and vow that their shoddy performance of 2009 will not be repeated.

The statistics from Monday’s 10-9 season-ending loss to East Carolina do not lie. The Gamecocks got what they wanted from Jay Brown, a wizened pitcher who shut down the Pirates’ bats while his teammates posted a 6-0 lead. Brown’s stuff isn’t electric and everybody in Clark-LeClair Stadium knew it, but Brown knew if he could just tough it out for four or five innings while he got some hits, he could at least set the table.

He did his job. Then the bullpen yanked the tablecloth away, spilling the super regional meal that was laid out upon it.

Brown gave up two runs, five hits, three walks and struck out three in 4 2-3 innings. In the remaining five innings, the bullpen gave up eight runs, nine hits, five walks, a hit batter and only struck out one.

No one can blame the decision to go to the bullpen because there was no other decision that could be made. USC’s starting pitching was shot after the first three games. Coach Ray Tanner knew he’d have to get to his relievers sooner or later and figured the odds were good – he had his seemingly best crew of Parker Bangs, Curtis Johnson and Alex Farotto ready.

None of the three were effective. Johnson was the one who had the great misfortune of being out there trying to get the last three outs – he got none before Devin Harris cranked the game-tying three-run home run in the ninth inning.

The Gamecocks stumbled into the offseason with a lot of questions, most of them dealing with pitching. Tanner said as much afterward, softening the blow with the prefix that college coaches always wish they had more, better pitching.

“Most college coaches will tell you they’d like to pitch a little bit better,” Tanner said. “We weren’t as good as we wanted to be, but we were good enough to be here.”

Here’s what I’m saying – USC’s bullpen is not tough. That is why it failed.

Brown is tough. Blake Cooper is tough. Nolan Belcher is tough. Those three are not blessed with the scorching fastball of Sam Dyson, so they make do with what they have – a will to make themselves better and keep getting outs, throwing pitches they know their defense can handle and staying out of trouble. Specifically, if there’s a three-ball count, they don’t throw as hard as they can trying to strike a guy out on one pitch. They pick a spot they know they can hit, throw softer and if the guy hits it, the guy hits it.

On Monday, there was none of that from the relief crew. There was no urgency in trying to get the outs. The Gamecocks seemed to think that they’d just keep getting lucky, right up until the moment that pitch sailed out of left field.

The question is, how has it gotten to this point? Anyone believing Tanner has slipped is ever further out in left than that home-run ball. Pitching coach Mark Calvi is not the problem (read that again) – he’s doing the best he can with what he has. Unfortunately, he’ll always be held up to Jerry Meyers, something he can’t do anything about.

The problem is the best pitchers haven’t been coming to USC for a while. There’s only so much to go around anyway, but despite the draft and other college programs bidding for their services, the Gamecocks always managed to pull in five or six stars-in-waiting.

A group that heavy hasn’t happened in a while. USC has gotten some good pitchers, just not enough of them.

That has caused the best guys to rise to the top and take their starting places. The Gamecocks’ starting pitching staff was fine this year – not one of the country’s best, but good enough to win 17 SEC games and 40 overall.

It was the rest that was the headache. The bullpen ran hot and cold all year.

Farotto claimed the closer’s role with five saves by March 28, the season’s 23rd game. He got two the rest of the season (40 games).

Johnson, coming off rotator cuff and labrum injuries, was effective, but only in small doses. That he was one of the top choices to go to despite the medical issues speaks to the bullpen’s lack of depth.

Bangs was close to perfect in three of his last four appearances. Before and after (10 before and one after), he was ripped.

Adam Westmoreland, a weekend starter in the early season, was demoted after he began issuing too many walks during his games. He pitched good enough to win in the late season but did not appear in the regional after tweaking his arm during the SEC tournament.

Michael Roth, a budding hitter, was asked to pitch more often during the end of the regular season and did well, but he also did not appear in the regional.

The rest had to pick their spots when they could, an opportunity that became greater when freshman Matt Price went down for the season halfway through. Some were good, some were bad, but the depth was so thin that the Gamecocks had to take Steven Neff (four appearances), Will Casey (six appearances, none since April 24) and James Rawls (one appearance, on March 6) to fill out the postseason roster.

The solution is for Tanner, Calvi, Chad Holbrook and whoever else helps out in recruiting to go out, wherever they have a thread of a connection, and find pitchers. Do not find guys they think they can pitch, find pitchers.

The pitchers that have defined this program were guys that had talent and toughness. There’s talent on this year’s staff, as well as toughness – it’s just rarely within the same player. Find guys who are mentally tough first, teach them how to pitch and bolster the bullpen.

Some of the Gamecocks’ starters will be back next year and that role seems to be in good shape. The bullpen will lose Johnson, Farotto and possibly Bangs, which leaves the Gamecocks behind Square One if not standing directly on it.

Whoever’s left has to take the stand now, though, that what happened in Greenville will not happen again. East Carolina is a great team, yes, but USC beat it once and should have beaten it two other times, when one win was all it needed. One pitch, one tough pitch, at the right time and USC is booking hotel rooms in Chapel Hill right now.

Toughness is what’s required. The Gamecocks get to decide who auditions.

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Brown Standing on the Brink

“I’m holding out for a hero ’til the morning light,
He’s gotta be sure,
And it’s gotta be soon,
And he’s gotta be larger than life.”
--------------------------- BONNIE TYLER

Remember Steven Bondurant?

He was good in 2002, rising from a past mostly spent on the bench and in midweek games to become an integral starter. He made the travel roster for the College World Series, saw the Gamecocks fall into the losers’ bracket and was then handed an impossible task.

Cool off Clemson, for the second straight game after the Gamecocks forced a winner-take-all matchup, and put USC into the national championship game. Clemson, which had beaten USC three of four times in the regular season. Clemson, which had a trio of sluggers in the middle of the lineup that had pulverized pitching staffs all year and was playing in a notorious hitters’ paradise.

Bondurant could have turned in his cap and glove and high-tailed it home to North Carolina. Instead, on one glorious afternoon, he became a legend.

I’m a big believer in emotion winning ballgames – not so much in baseball, but definitely in football and basketball, where you have a lot of physical contact with the other team. In baseball, as a former coach once told me, you have to limit the emotion because too much of it will impair your fundamentals.

Finding the right mix, as Bondurant did on that Omaha afternoon, is the key to success.

This is the situation the Gamecocks find themselves in. Beginning at 6 p.m., they take the field with no momentum, no win streak and not many on-site fans in their corner.

What I’m hoping they do have – besides the solution to the hitting woes that hampered them last night – is the memories of those standout performances.

Bondurant wasn’t the only one through the years. I recall Kip Bouknight coming out of the bullpen to save the day, closer Blake Taylor starting a game in Omaha, freshman Aaron Rawl throwing a complete game, Wynn Pelzer untouchable for one summer evening. Because it was against Clemson, in such a situation, though, Bondurant is always the one that tops the list.

Jay Brown gets the ball tonight. If he’s got his Bondurant mojo working, he could be out there a while. The Gamecocks’ best four relievers – Curtis Johnson, Parker Bangs and Alex Farotto, plus former starter Adam Westmoreland – are behind him.

The stats say USC has a great chance to light up the remnants of East Carolina’s pitching staff. I say stats only show so much – they won’t help you put the bat on the ball once you’re standing up there.

Plus, you’ve always got to defend the lead. That’s where Brown and his cronies come in.

The team hotel is a few miles away. Anybody who wants to FedEx a DVD of Bondurant against Clemson, let me know, and I’ll take care of the rest.

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C.C. or C.See-ya?

“I said C., C. C. Rider,
Oh see, what you have done.”
------------------ MA RAINEY

It is important to note here that C.C. Whitlock is innocent until proven guilty. It is also important to note that I am not advocating one way or the other what should happen to the kid.

But something needs to be said, and I’ve got nothing else to do until this afternoon.

I am not offended by most of the charges brought up against Whitlock or any of the other knuckleheads it’s been my curse to write about since I’ve covered this team. Most of them fall into the category of “boys being boys,” or stuff I could see myself getting busted for had I not been born with more than half a brain and a fervent wish to never let my dear sainted mother see me wearing a jail jumpsuit.

What I am offended about is the situation these kids put themselves in. Whitlock’s case is another in a long line of troubles where I’d love to stand up in a press conference and ask them one simple question – “What the hell were you thinking?”

Let’s go ahead and brush aside the “police targeting” theory in this one. While I believe it has happened occasionally, I don’t believe every cop in the Midlands has got a vendetta against USC athletes.

It’s actually the opposite, in this case. According to the police report, the cops did everything they could to end the scene with no arrests.

So you’re sitting in a bar, underage, and you’ve just been asked to leave by a man with a badge and a gun. This is called a warning, or in the untrained tongue, a scarce opportunity akin to getting hit by lightning while winning the lottery.

That’s getting off light. That means you have been handed a get-out-of-jail free card and you need to lay it down or your hotel on Park Place is going to get foreclosed on.

The cops could have arrested Whitlock on sight and charged him with underage drinking and refusing to obey an officer of the law, plus anything else they could think of. Instead, they repeatedly told Whitlock to leave and he, for reasons known only to him, didn’t.

So they busted him. Anybody squawking how they should have given the kid a second chance is conveniently overlooking the fact that they gave him a third, fourth and fifth already and Whitlock didn’t take them.

They only charged him with trespassing – not underage drinking – although they mentioned the alcohol on his breath in the police report. It’s a minor charge that will probably end up being dropped.

The point is, why was Whitlock ever in position to be charged with anything? Here’s a young man that inhabited Steve Spurrier’s doghouse for the majority of last season, missed spring practice and was on the edge of not qualifying academically for this season. He begged for another chance and Spurrier gave him one.

A few days later, he’s in a club refusing to leave when the cops asked him.

The thought process – if there indeed was one – boggles the mind. You’ve been handed a second chance, you know what you have to do and not to do. Yet you put yourself right back in the cross-hairs.

I have no problem with Whitlock hanging out with his buddies. Ditto with him drinking underage, although I certainly don’t welcome that choice. He’s out of school and as long as he shows up for the offseason workouts, I don’t care if he’s a model citizen or not when he’s not lifting weights.

The problem – why do it in public? Especially when you’ve been asked to leave said public place?

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. I did my share of underage drinking in college (sorry, Mom). I also did it in places I knew stood zero to little chance the cops would bust in and ask me for my ID – like, my dorm room, a friend’s house, the roof of one building on campus (name withheld to protect the innocent, and maybe that wasn’t such a hot idea after all).

I know it must be tough being a Division I athlete. I’m not being sarcastic. Having your entire life planned out for you, especially when you play football, cannot be easy.

But the sacrifice is there because you have an opportunity that the rest of us normal schlubs only wish we had. You could be playing on Sundays while we’re betting the mortgage on your fantasy stats.

Like I said, I’m not advocating the dismissal or retention of Whitlock on the Gamecocks’ football team. I’ve seen him play and he’s a tremendous athlete who I think could definitely help the squad.

All I’m saying is he – and a few others around campus – need to wise up. If nothing else, when you get the urge to break a few laws, contact me.

I can show you my USC disciplinary file, now filling one file cabinet drawer and starting on another.

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Ah, Hoover usually sucks anyway

First, a note of congratulations …

“We are the champions.”
----------------- QUEEN

Stopped by Memorial Stadium last night to watch my beloved alma mater, Northwestern High School, win the Class AAAA state soccer championship. It was the Trojans’ third in the past four years and something much more – by beating No. 2 Irmo, the nationally-ranked No. 1 Trojans claimed the mythical national championship.

I’m not a soccer guy – I have constantly told a friend of mine who loves the sport that it is nothing but cross country with a ball. I was never a fan of it, watching or playing (although that latter term is used very loosely. I retired from soccer after five years as the all-time worst goalie in the history of the Rock Hill recreational leagues).

Watching those boys, though, was something. There are representatives of eight different countries on that team. The coach has now won 98 of his 106 matches at the school.

I’d heard about the matchup and decided to check it out, if I was home from the SEC tournament. I was, and being a proud NHS alumnus – one of the things they preach to us as we walk across that stage is undying loyalty – I checked it out.

The Trojans beat Irmo 3-1 and won each championship. The only regret I have – thanks to some bureaucratic nonsense, the best player in the state, Northwestern’s Enzo Martinez, won’t be playing for South Carolina or Clemson next season. He signed with North Carolina after there was some garbage about his Uruguayan nationality impeding his progress to attend an in-state school. That’ll be a decision that each coach will wind up cursing the legislature for over the next four years.

Well done, Trojans. Purple Pride, class of ’96.

And now, to the main event …

“Never mind, never mind.”
-------------- NANCI GRIFFITH

Don’t be too concerned with USC’s less-than-stellar performance at the SEC tournament. The Gamecocks are where they want to be – the NCAA Regionals – and doing well in the tournament would have only meant they’d be at home.

As it is, they’ll be on the road (destination revealed at 12:30 p.m. on Monday). Based on what I think might happen, USC stands an excellent chance of advancing past the regionals and at least playing to get to the College World Series – a favorable draw with the other side of their mini-bracket could have the Gamecocks hosting a Super Regional.

The road will be announced in less than 24 hours and all of our fevered brains can start working the Memorial Day-soakings out and try to concentrate on pitching matchups, dark horses and just what in the hell Green Day was thinking when they wrote that last album. As for the Gamecocks, don’t worry about their moxie or gumption for next week.

The best thing I saw in Hoover was Nick Ebert. Not at the plate, not in the field, not out at the mall.

Ebert sat on the USC bench, head in hands, wiping his eyes after striking out with the bases loaded in what would be the Gamecocks’ final game. That told me all I need to know about him and the team he’s a part of.

This team cares.

It’s not a case of, “Hey, we lost. Big deal.” It’s a case of losing opening an abyss in the heart.

The Gamecocks don’t like it. And the old excuse of “That’s baseball” may be fine to say to the traveling scribes, but I don’t believe for a second that’s the line handed out in the clubhouse.

I didn’t expect anything great in Hoover. USC went into the tournament with a lifetime record of 19-20 in that park. Yeah, there’s been a couple of good showings but the majority haven’t been.

The 1-2 record wasn’t surprising or concerning. The back-to-back rallies to put themselves within a swing each time of winning was a little disturbing – not so much that they didn’t do it, but that they didn’t do it two days in a row. That kind of hangover can carry over.

But I don’t think it will. Ebert’s reaction made me realize that even in the jaded, cynical world we live in, where athletes are pampered and told they’re special (read: above the law) from Day 1, there are still some that are torn apart by a loss.

It was refreshing. I know coach Ray Tanner wasn’t happy with the tournament’s result, but he had to be happy with how his team fought to get in position for the result. Three weeks ago, the Gamecocks were dangling by a scrap of a toenail, about to fall into the strange land of No Regional.

Now they’re back where they’re used to being, and if there was a publicized report on the subject, I believe it would show USC was one of the last one or two schools considered to host a regional.

History shows me that since the NCAA went to its current format of four-team regionals, USC has gone on the road four times. The Gamecocks are 2-2; not great, but far better than 0-4.

The four top seeds in the most likely destinations don’t give me any reason to doubt that record could be 3-2 after next week. Georgia Tech went 3-4 down the stretch and 1-2 in the ACC tournament. North Carolina went 4-3, 1-2. Florida State went 5-2 (with four of those against Grambling State), 2-2 and East Carolina went 6-1 (against teams who averaged around 26 wins this year), 1-2.

USC, same stretch – 7-0, 1-2.

Of course it will depend on who else is in the regional – USC won’t face a top seed in its first game. But the confidence from winning 10 of 11 games to finish the regular season won’t disappear because of the SEC tournament.

The Gamecocks planned all season to be here. They’re here.

Don’t think for a second they don’t know what comes next.

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Help! They need somebody ...

“When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way,
But now, these days are gone, I’m not so self-assured,
Now I find, I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.”
-------------------------------------------------------- THE BEATLES

South Carolina’s electrifying finish has gotten it back onto the bubble as a potential host site for an NCAA Regional, but it’s not quite where it needs to be.

The bubble breaks this week, and it’ll be up to the Gamecocks and some factors they can’t control determining where they land.

A word of advice, USC fans – you’re already going to be cheering against Alabama on Wednesday. Cheer against Florida, too.

I think donning the hated orange for this is a worthy cause.

For the Gamecocks to host a regional, they’re going to have to win a few games and they’re going to have to have Alabama and Florida lose a few games. And for the latter criteria, the sooner, the better.

Alabama was considered a strong bet for a host site last week, then it lost two of three to Auburn. The Gamecocks need to keep that trend going by winning on Wednesday. Florida might be a bit more difficult – no matter what happens in Hoover, the Gators still won the SEC East and swept the Gamecocks this season.

What the Gamecocks have to do is hope Florida goes two-and-barbecue, so their advantages come into play. No, their record isn’t as good, they lost the head-to-head and they don’t have the division title in hand.

But they do have a much better ballpark – and by that, I mean better seating and more potential ticket revenue – than the Gators. If USC gets the wins to go with it, it could be a very homey postseason.

“I think we’re back in the conversation,” coach Ray Tanner said on Tuesday. “If we go deep into the tournament, probably going to get a little more talk.

“It comes down to what happens in the rest of the country, too. It could happen. Never can tell.”

The latest projections on SEBaseball.com have USC going to a regional in Greenville, N.C., with host East Carolina, No. 3 Western Carolina and No. 4 Rhode Island. It also has regionals landing at Florida, Ole Miss and LSU.

The Rebels and Tigers were expected to host after tying for the SEC regular-season championship. Florida got there after winning the East. Alabama, according to the projection, has lost its host and will go to Florida State as a No. 2 seed.

It can be done. Keep in mind, Georgia and Arkansas were considered locks for host sites in the midseason and played themselves right out of it. With USC’s history of hosting strongly attended regionals and its 10-1 season-ending, the selection committee just needs a bit stronger record to consider to push the Gamecocks over the hump.

It wouldn’t be a strange concept to have four SEC teams hosting – shoot, five teams have hosted in two of the past five years. The Gamecocks saw what they had to do to get to Hoover (and put themselves in the regionals) three weeks ago and did it. The next step beckons.

I sure wouldn’t mind if all I had to do was drive 10 minutes from the house to cover the game. Instead of pressing hotel clerks in Atlanta, Chapel Hill or Tallahassee on what nightspots are the hottest, I could be at Wild Hare five minutes after filing my story.

Roll the Tide and make the Gators bait.

Who’s with me?

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Greetings from Hoover!

"Everybody look what's going down."
----------------- THE BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD

Hello, everybody, DC here talking to you from the wilds of Hoover, Ala., and the SEC baseball tournament. I'll be going off to watch USC practice in a few minutes but wanted to let you all know that myself, Scott Hood, Paul Collins and Roger Olivieri will be bringing you complete coverage of the tournament and lots of other things this week, as long as I keep those latter three reprobates out of the local Hooter's and their minds on their jobs.

Kind of breezy here, which I'm hoping stays that way, because I know how scalding hot it'll get here pretty soon. That's the kind of heat that makes spit sizzle on the sidewalk and I've got no desire to sit through four games of that (on just the first day).

If you haven't already seen it, the All-SEC team was announced today and several Gamecocks were on the list, although none on the first team. I'm also baffled how the league can award a co-freshman of the year to two players and one of them is not Jackie Bradley Jr. Preston Tucker had a great season and deserves the award, no question, but I'd put Bradley Jr. over any other person they could choose any day.

Anyway, stay tuned for some stories posted tonight and tomorrow, leading up to the game. Grab a nap when you get home from work tomorrow -- the scheduled start is 9:30 p.m., meaning the actual is probably around 10.

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Give credit where it's due

Just got back from one of my best friend’s wedding. I cried. Not out of happiness, but over the idea that yet another good soldier has fallen.

While the rebels continue to storm the palace of freedom, yours truly leading the charge, some still feel compelled to strap themselves to the rack in the dungeon of marriage.

With that in mind, a lyric entry that has nothing whatsoever to do with today’s topic. This one’s for you, JT.

“Down on one knee on momma’s front steps,
Man, I'm gonna die if she really says yes.”
--------------------------------- KENNY CHESNEY

With that out of the way …

You know it had to be killing Ray Tanner inside. His South Carolina baseball team had just been swept at Florida and as he boarded the bus to come back home, it was as quiet as dawn breaking over the Badlands.

There are a few ways to approach the situation.

1. The Belle-Steinbrenner. Destroy water coolers, sunflower seed buckets and helmets while wielding a bat and bless out your team as it sullenly dresses. Threaten to revoke scholarships, pull at least one player aside and tell him you want to see him in your office the minute you get back to campus and finish with, “I better not hear a peep on that bus!”

2. The Martyr. Blame the umpires, the field, the sun, the rain, the crowd, anything but your team for its lousy performance. Never come right out and say it but at least plant some ideas in reporters’ heads to make them think that jerk in the other dugout was running his mouth and cheating all weekend.

3. The That’s OK, We’ll Get ’Em Next Game. A favorite of Atlanta skipper Bobby Cox, the eternal optimism angle takes the pressure off the minds of the players. What you hope is it does it enough to get some wins before the season’s over.

Tanner had his choice. He didn’t pick any of them.

He chose, “4. Nothing.”

What could he say? That the Gamecocks were awful that weekend? They knew that already. That their postseason hopes, forget about hosting a regional, were dangling on dental floss 1,000 feet above some very pointy rocks? They can look at the standings just like anybody else and figure that out.

So he did nothing. He told them they had some work to do, wished them luck on their exams and let them think about it. As the boos and online questioning flared again, demanding change and accountability, Tanner sat through the week off and waited on the next series.

He kept preaching “Marathon, not a sprint.” One game or series does not define a baseball team. When a football team loses a game, it’s big because there are only 12. A baseball team has 56 and isn’t going to win every one.

It’s how it reacts after losing a few in a row that labels it.

The Gamecocks welcomed Vanderbilt to Carolina Stadium and took the field knowing what they were up against. They didn’t need any extra motivation – the chilly atmosphere on the bus ride from Florida was enough of a reminder.

They won, 8-5. No one began turning cartwheels because there was so far to go.

But they kept winning. Home runs and two-out knocks were once again finding holes and the pitching staff, so maligned all season, found itself. A staff with a collective ERA over 5.00 pitched the final 11 games with a 4.78 tally, not great but good enough, and that number became a blistering 2.20 in the last five games.

When the smoke cleared, the Gamecocks had won 10 of their final 11, a 9-5 loss at Tennessee akin to the only mole on Kristen Bell. Otherwise, they were flawless.

Here’s where it gets interesting. USC, picked to finish fourth in the SEC East, placed second with a 17-13 mark. That tied the Gamecocks’ best conference record from the last five seasons. They also bested the 15-15 mark of last year’s team, a unit stocked with all-stars and draft picks, by two games.

Yes, it’s worth it to point out the three SEC teams they played weren’t the cream of the crop. Tennessee didn’t make it to the SEC tournament, Vanderbilt squeaked in as the eighth and final seed and Georgia has collapsed after once being ranked No. 1 in the country.

But USC, in the early season, was hardly the cream of the crop either. After years of being the bullies of the SEC, the Gamecocks at times looked downright ordinary.

Now, though, just look at them. They finished 10-1. USC’s last four season-ending finishes – 6-5, 7-4, 4-7, 4-7. You’ve got to go back to 2003 to find the last 10-1 finish, something the Gamecocks had also done in 2002, and if I recall, the ending of those two seasons was pretty sweet.

The Gamecocks are playing their best baseball exactly when they need to be, something they couldn’t do in recent years. That terrible series at Florida is only a memory, as hazy as the steam off Nick Ebert’s bat.

“Expectations don’t change, but the players do,” Tanner said after the first win over Georgia. “I think for a long time, we were searching a little bit for some identity. I didn’t have an answer.

“But we’ve hung in there, we’ve played hard. I don’t know why we’ve played better the last couple of weeks. We’ve just been able to win.”

Hoover beckons. A terrific performance there could put the Gamecocks back in the discussion to host an NCAA Regional, although that’s probably still a major longshot. But they’ll be going somewhere after the week is over – not a doubt in anyone’s mind.

I’m reminded of the old saying. “Great teams aren’t great all the time, only when they have to be.”

Strangely, the boos and calls for Tanner’s job have ceased.

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Gamecocks in MLB

Catching up with USC’s professional baseball alumni

THE SHOW

Brian Buscher, 3B, Minnesota
Hitting .185 with two RBIs in 11 games.

Adam Everett, SS, Detroit
Hitting .269 with one homer and 10 RBIs in 16 games. Has stolen one base.

Landon Powell, C, Oakland
Hitting .200 with six RBIs in seven games.

Brian Roberts, 2B, Baltimore
Hitting .208 with two homers and seven RBIs in 25 games. Has stolen three bases.

MINOR LEAGUES

Will Atwood, LHP, Class A Advanced Potomac (Washington)
Has started four games and is 0-3 with an 11.65 ERA. Has struck out nine and walked seven in 17 innings.

Chad Blackwell, RHP, Double-A Arkansas (Los Angeles Angels)
Has appeared in six games and is 1-0 with a 10.24 ERA. Has struck out nine and walked six in 9 2-3 innings.

Billy Buckner, RHP, Triple-A Reno (Arizona)
Has appeared in four games with two starts and is 0-1 with a 6.75 ERA. Has struck out 10 and walked seven.

Mike Cisco, RHP, Class A Advanced Clearwater (Philadelphia)
On seven-day disabled list.

Jon Coutlangus, LHP, Triple-A Reno (Arizona)
Has appeared in 10 games and is 0-0 with a 6.32 ERA. He has struck out six, walked four and recorded one save in 15 2-3 innings.

James Darnell, 3B, Class A Fort Wayne (San Diego)
Hitting .273 with three homers and 11 RBIs in 22 games. Has stolen four bases.

Phil Disher, 1B, Class A Lexington (Houston)
Hitting .171 with three homers and 12 RBIs in 22 games.

Reese Havens, SS, Class A Advanced St. Lucie (New York Mets)
Hitting .308 with five homers and 14 RBIs in 23 games.

Travis Jones, 2B, Double-A Mississippi (Atlanta)
Hitting .254 with seven RBIs in 20 games. Has four stolen bases.

Marcus McBeth, RHP, Triple-A Pawtucket (Boston)
Has appeared in nine games with one start and is 1-0 with a 1.42 ERA. Has struck out 16, walked six and recorded two saves in 12 2-3 innings.

Kevin Melillo, 2B, Double-A Huntsville (Milwaukee)
Hitting .274 with eight RBIs in 20 games. Has walked 17 times to only six strikeouts.

Drew Meyer, 2B, Double-A Corpus Christi (Houston)
Hitting .267 with one homer and seven RBIs in 21 games.

Steve Pearce, OF, Triple-A Indianapolis (Pittsburgh)
Hitting .244 with three homers and 15 RBIs in 21 games. Has stolen one base.

Wynn Pelzer, RHP, Class A Advanced Lake Elsinore (San Diego)
Has started four games and is 3-0 with a 4.19 ERA. Has struck out 19 and walked nine in 19 1-3 innings.

Justin Smoak, 1B, Double-A Frisco (Texas)
Hitting .358 with four homers and 16 RBIs in 22 games. Has walked 18 times and struck out 10 times.

Brandon Todd, RHP, Class A Greensboro (Florida)
Has appeared in eight games and is 1-0 with a 0.64 ERA. Has struck out 12, walked eight and recorded two saves in 14 innings.

Steven Tolleson, 2B, Double-A New Britain (Minnesota)
Hitting .164 with two RBIs in 16 games. Has two stolen bases.

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